


Three Steps and Hit Self-Destruct

by Kila9Nishika



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: BAD WOLF mentions, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, People with Fake Names
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:06:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kila9Nishika/pseuds/Kila9Nishika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things that must happen.  Some things that happen just because.  And then there are some things that even the might of the multiverse cannot keep apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ouroboros:  Ending at the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> So... here is the beginning of a Doctor Who and Torchwood tale that could expand - that has a great deal more story hidden behind this intro. The thing is, I just don't know if I'm ever going to write any more of this - although, knowing me, that means that I'll be posting more tomorrow. No promises, though. I just don't know if this will get finished. So, here's the intro to a story that will DESTROY most of Torchwood Post-S1 canon.  
> Just warning you.

_Three steps and hit the Self-Destruct._   The irony...five hundred long years to build it. Two faces, endless relatives born and dead, heartbroken over and over again.  Five hundred _years_ of waiting - and now, destroy it.

Then again, a device that could harvest Artron energy and transport between universes...

That Would Be Bad, if it got into the wrong hands.  So...

_Three steps and hit the Self-Destruct_.  Then...

Gasping for breath, she stripped a large harness from her shoulders, and threw it away, stabbing a large red button as she threw.  Curling into a ball, she rolled away – but it wasn’t far enough.  When it exploded, the fireball swallowed the quivering woman in the alleyway.

And Rose Tyler, for the third time in her linear timeline, died.

\---

_So much death_...

Stumbling, the Doctor stared at the TARDIS console.  Gone, gone, _gone_ , everyone gone - or hated him.  Rightfully so.  His mere _existence_ had ruined the lives of so many - Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Jack, (oh, _Jack_ , _Jack_ ,) _Rose Tyler_ , Peri Brown, Kosch- _no_ , the Master, Romana, Alistair, River, Amy, Rory, Susan, Ace, _Clara_...

He was so tired.

"At the end, just you and I, right, Love?" He patted the console.  "Beginning and end, together forever, right?" 

The lights flickered.

"Haa... I had hoped this would be the last, you know."  Golden light spilled from his lips.

A light telepathic hum embraced the Doctor's thoughts.

"Yeah, yeah, but I've only got seven dimensions, Love.  Well, seven and a half.  But that means that forever is a bit more daunting than for you, you glorious fourteen-dimensioned creature, you."

_Lovelovelove_

"I'll leave you somewhere nice - Cardiff, maybe.  You can find a nice telepathically inclined creature and rediscover the universe."

_Not-you-no-not-the-same_.

The Doctor laughed tiredly, more golden light twining around his body.  "Goodbye." He grinned.  "See you with a new face!"

Then he screamed. 

The TARDIS wished that the Chameleon Circuit was out of commission.  She didn't want her Thief to leave, and too much could go wrong with the Chameleon Circuit, especially after regeneration.

\---

In Cardiff, a preteen boy was adopted by a couple and their daughter.  He grew up lonely and always reaching for something _more_ , always knowing that there was something _beyond_ what he knew.  Too odd to fit in with his classmates, too awkward to get on with his dad, and too, _too_ _lost_.  He grew up, and got into trouble after trouble.  Trouble with his dad, trouble with the police, and trouble with Torchwood.  At the very least, his trouble with Torchwood became a job.  But alone.  Forever, forever alone.

A tiny girl with over-large black hair and a gap in her teeth was adopted by an aging couple.  They pampered her – gave her all she could want, within their abilities, and taught her as well as she could.  She was, in some ways, the most ordinary of little girls, bound and determined that everyone has their happy ending.  But she was also strange, in that nobody could resist something about her.  Something was _strange_ …but she grew up.  And moved out.  And for all that she gathered, she remained oddly alone.  Forever, forever alone.

Only a handful of miles away, a prisoner became a coworker – employed but enslaved.  Paid but chained.  Living.  _Always_ living.  But alone.  Living, but forever alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry... I don't speak Chinese.

Shivering, Martha Jones squinted through the blowing snow as she shuffled forward.  Her contact was supposed to be somewhere near here, but with the icy winds and endless snow, she could be blindfolded for all her eyes were of use.  It was a good thing her contact in Kolkata had given her a coat, or she would have frozen to death by now.

“Hello the hilltop!”

Martha jumped.  _English_.  And not just English, but English with a Welsh accent!

“Hello?” she called back tentatively.

Out of the nothingness of swirling snow, two people… appeared.  A man and a woman. 

The woman had wide, dark eyes, a gap between her teeth, and matted black curls squashed flat by a dull grey knitted cap.  The man had a rounded sort of face, with dark hair, distant eyes, and a green scarf.  He was also wearing what could have been the twin to Jack’s greatcoat.  The woman stuck out a hand.  “We’ll take you to camp, Martha Jones,” she said through a heavy Welsh accent.  “No need to sit up here any longer than you must.”

Martha stared.  “How do you know…”

“Martha Jones, the Woman Who Walks the World,” the man interrupted.  “The Teller of Tales, the One Who Speaks of the Doctor.”  Pausing, a flicker of something flashed across his face, too fast for Martha to identify.  “You’ve seen Jack.  How is he?  Is he – alright?”

Martha just continued to stare.  “How do I know that I can trust you?” she challenged.  “You could easily be plants.”

“At the top of Kechu?  Unlikely.  Nobody serving the Great Arse would be willing to freeze their bloody toes off.”  The man shifted, and whirled around.  “Well?  Martha Jones, are you coming or not?”

Shaking her head, the woman took Martha’s hand and shook it.  “My name is Dakhui Lang, Martha Jones.  Perhaps you’ve heard of Torchwood?”

“Gwyneth!” the man shouted.

“My name’s not bloody Gwyneth!”  Lang hollered back at the man.  “Stop acting like that, she’ll think you’re a madman in a trenchcoat!”

The man stopped a few feet away, and huffed.  “For the last time, Lang, it’s a greatcoat.  And…” he trailed off, something somewhat mad flickering in the depths of his light brown eyes.  “I _am_ a madman in a greatcoat.”

Lang snorted.  “Very well then, madman, lead on.  We’ll follow.”  She turned to Martha.  “Sorry.  We’ve been a bit – isolated.  Dragon keeps everyone in line, and I shout when people start acting stupid.” 

Martha shivered violently.  “Right.”  Frowning, she asked, “And who’s Dragon?”

Lang blinked.  “Oh – oh – ooh, that bastard!  That _was_ Dragon.  After the first broadcast of Jack being tortured, he dropped his birth name.  Said that he’d died.”  Lang’s voice dropped.  “If you’d known him before…we’ve all gone a bit mad, but I think that, in a way, he did die.”

Martha nodded, taking it all in.  She was just glad that they were walking, because she was pretty sure that she would have otherwise lost all feeling in her feet.

“Lang!  Lang!”  A starved-looking teen with stringy black hair jogged up.  “Tah shw yeiying?”

Lang nodded, and waved her gloved hands.  “Dao-Yishung.”

The boy nodded, and darted away.  Martha looked between them.  “What did you say?”

Lang looked at her.  “He asked if you were you.  I said he should go to Yishung.”

“Yishung?”

Lang smiled wryly.  “Among other things, our camp doctor.”

“It took you long enough.”  Dragon appeared as if out of nowhere, and Martha absently wondered if he had a teleport.  “What did you do, stop to see the sights?”  Without waiting for a response, he turned away.  “Yishung’s alerted camp.  Get ready to talk for a long time.”

Turning to Lang, Martha asked, “Is he always that brusque?”

Lang gaped.  “Brusque?  That was the most he’s said in _months_.”

\---

For every word that Martha had said, a petite Japanese woman translated for her into Chinese, and three languages that Martha didn’t recognise.  At Martha’s and the Japanese woman’s prompting, the people repeated the word “Doctor” until Dragon was satisfied.  With a murmur to Lang, Dragon somehow managed to send everyone off to whatever they had been doing before Martha had arrived.

“We’ve a warm place for you to sleep,” Dragon said, with as false a smile as Martha had ever seen on his face.  “Spider and I shall be going with you in the morning.”

“Spider?” Martha asked.

Dragon jerked his chin towards the Japanese woman who had translated all evening.  Martha nodded.  “Right.”

The next morning, heralded by a new storm full of snow, Martha set out again, this time flanked with a petite Japanese woman named Spider and a Welshman in a greatcoat named Dragon.

“You really don’t have to come with me,” Martha attempted to convince the two of them once more before they crossed the border into outright China.

“We really do,” Spider said, her eyes focused on a small electronic device.  “Me, because I’ll otherwise never forgive myself for voting Saxon, and Dragon, because he was going mad trapped in that camp.”

Martha winced.  Dragon was just looking at her, with dead eyes that looked more familiar than they should.  “Are we going?” Dragon asked, his voice flat.

Swallowing hard, Martha nodded.

\---

“I met a lot of interesting people, then,” Martha mused, sitting in the TARDIS.  “And now none of them will know me.”

“Yup.”

Martha attempted to summon a scowl for the unenthusiastic Doctor, but couldn’t.  He just looked so... broken.  Words leapt from her mouth before she could stop herself.

“You remind me of one of them.  Or they reminded me of you.”

Across the room, Jack looked up from – whatever he was doing.  The Doctor looked surprised.  “Really.”

Martha nodded tiredly.  “Yeah, ‘n the Himalayas.  Man called himself Dragon.  He and Spider brought me as far as Japan...” Her eyes began to fall shut.  “Dakhui Lang, Yishung, Dragon, and Spider...’ll never forget them...”

A loud clatter startled her back into the waking world.  The Doctor had dropped his sonic screwdriver, and was gaping at her.  “Say that again.”

Frowning, Martha did.   “Dakhui Lang, Yishung, Dragon, and Spider.”

Jack stood sharply.  “Dà huī láng?”

Martha nodded slowly, frowning as the Doctor and Jack mouthed the name at each other.  “What?  What’s so important about her?”

The Doctor abruptly snatched his sonic screwdriver off of the TARDIS floor, and fled the room.  A sad smile on his face, Jack sat down beside Martha.  “ _Dà huī láng_ means Bad Wolf.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dà huī láng - Bad Wolf  
> Yīshēng - Doctor


End file.
